A bannerman of Grand Cathay (Games Day Baltimore 2008)
The Cathayan Bannermen are the mainstay heavy infantry of the Grand Imperial Army of Grand Cathay.
Role
Bannermen are oath-sworn and stalwart warriors that wear emerald green back banners and are famous for standing their ground even when badly outnumbered.[1a]
They are known to wield long, slightly-curved, single-edged blades of thousand-folded iron, wickedly curved polearms and crossbows that shoot barbed bolts.[1a] They also carry lacquered "tiger-shields," probably named after a tiger stripe pattern painted on their surface, and, at least in elite formations, such as the Palace Guard of the Dragon Emperor, wear lacquered scale armour.[2a]
Canon Conflict
With the introduction of Grand Cathay as an official Warhammer faction in Warhammer: The Old World and Total War: Warhammer III, the place of the Cathayan Bannermen as the Grand Imperial Army's primary heavy infantry units appears to have been taken instead by the Jade Warriors.
Trivia
Despite being represented as the primary infantry of the Warhammer version of China, the Cathayan Bannermen are more closely related to the Japanese samurai than ancient Chinese warriors. In fact, the back-banners worn by these warriors are based upon the sashimono, small banners used by feudal Japanese samurai as a form of clan identification during combat.
The only wargear of the Cathayan Bannermen that is Chinese in origin is the polearm used by these warriors, which looks almost like a ji, a weapon in use within the Chinese military since at least the time of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1046 B.C-256 B.C.). It resembles a hybrid between a spear and a dagger-axe.